BCS Written English case studies
BCS Written English · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The BCS Written English paper is the descriptive English component of the Bangladesh Civil Service written examination, taken by candidates who have already cleared the preliminary screening and are competing for cadre posts. It is a production exam rather than a recognition exam: you are not choosing answers, you are generating extended prose under time pressure, and the examiner is judging control - of structure, register, grammar and vocabulary - rather than recall. The BCS Written English case studies are 5 cases and about 2,201 words.
1The Overrunning Essay: Cutting 900 Words to 650 Without Losing the Argument
A candidate has written a 900-word essay for a 650-word limit (tolerance ±5%). The topic: whether social media has weakened face-to-face communication.
431 words, about 2 min2The Precis That Is Accurate but Too Long
A passage of 420 words argues that urban green spaces reduce summer temperatures, lower stress, and increase property values, but that these benefits are unevenly distributed because poorer districts receive less funding. It contains three examples, two quotations from a city planner, a rhetorical question, and a final sentence warning that 'greening without equity is gentrification with a garden'.
473 words, about 2 min3Idiom in Context: When the 'Correct' Meaning Is Wrong
A sentence-correction item reads: 'The manager decided to bite the bullet and postpone the launch, a decision that left the team in two minds.' A candidate is asked to judge whether the italicised idioms are used appropriately and, if not, to rewrite. The candidate knows that 'bite the bullet' means to endure something painful and that 'in two minds' means to be undecided.
441 words, about 2 min4Translation Direction Trap: Bengali to English and the Missing Article
A candidate must translate two short passages. Passage A (English to Bengali) describes a rural clinic that 'serves 300 patients a week, though it has only one doctor'.
431 words, about 2 min5Punctuation That Changes the Verdict: The Restrictive Clause
A sentence-correction item presents: 'The students, who had not revised, failed the test.' The candidate must decide whether the commas are correct and, if the intended meaning is that only the non-revising students failed, rewrite the sentence. A second item reads: 'My brother, who lives in Dhaka, is a doctor' and asks whether the commas should stay.
425 words, about 2 min